The Supreme Court protects 100% remote work for a worker with a disability: Law 10/2021 is a special rule that prevails over the collective agreement
The Supreme Court upholds full remote work for a RACC worker with a disability, applying Law 10/2021 as a special rule over the company agreement.
The Supreme Court has handed down one of its most significant rulings on remote work since the pandemic. Judgment 608/2026 of 1 July 2026 (appeal 131/2025), with Justice López Parada as rapporteur, upholds the right of a RACC worker with a disability to keep working fully from home, applying Law 10/2021 on remote work as a special rule that prevails over the company's internal agreement.
From full remote work to 75% without an individual agreement
The worker had been covered since July 2022 by an agreement that allowed her to work 100% remotely because of her disability. The pact included an expiry date of 31 December 2024, and on 17 October 2024 the company informed her verbally that her remote work would drop to 75%. She was one of 27 employees affected; only seven requested to keep the 100% arrangement. The National Court (Audiencia Nacional) had declared the company's decision void, and the company appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Litigation Chamber confirms the outcome with a decisive legal argument: Article 8.1 of Law 10/2021, which protects remote work agreed for reasons of disability, operates as lex specialis over the general regime of flexible working. The company could not unilaterally dismantle an arrangement whose legal foundation was precisely that special protection.
No expiry by verbal meetings
The second leg of the judgment addresses the limitation period. The company argued that the claim was time-barred under Article 138.1 of the Employment Procedure Act (LRJS), but the Supreme Court holds that the limitation period does not run on the basis of verbal communications in meetings: the worker needs a clear, formal decision in order to challenge it. The ruling closes a route that companies were beginning to use to wear down remote-work arrangements through informal notice.
For employment lawyers, the judgment offers three practical lessons. First, remote work agreed on disability grounds enjoys reinforced protection and cannot be repapered as ordinary flexibility. Second, individual agreements on distance working survive later collective adjustments unless the worker expressly accepts the change. Third, any communication that curtails rights should be formal, because informality resets the clock against the employer. The case sits alongside the court's recent case law on the reduction of working time and its limits, and connects with the practice of remote work in law firms under Law 10/2021 and the recent ruling on the insurance collective agreement and the corrected GDP.
A reinforced protection with practical teeth
Beyond the specific case, the judgment consolidates an interpretation that employment departments had been demanding: agreements on remote work linked to disability are not an ordinary benefit that the company can adjust unilaterally, but a protection measure anchored in a special rule. The difference matters in practice: while ordinary flexible-working arrangements can be revised under the general regime of substantial modification of conditions, arrangements under Law 10/2021 require an express pact with the worker, and silence or verbal notice does not replace it.
For companies, the operational lesson is twofold. First, any revision of remote-work arrangements with a disability component should go through a written individual negotiation, with a record of the worker's acceptance. Second, verbal communications in meetings — however well documented in minutes — do not start the limitation clock for claims, so informal management of these transitions multiplies the risk instead of reducing it. The judgment thus joins the line of case law that prizes formality as an instrument of legal certainty for both sides.
Source: Confilegal and Economist & Jurist, verified 3 November 2026.
Related links
Fuentes
- confilegal.com. Accessed 3 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
